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AROT TNI TI-fE WORLD A Gordian Knot: The Ethnic Relations of the South Slays It is likely that the violent war now raging between the south peoples will be included among the tragic of the twentieth century. The roots of the animosity extend far into the past. While a solution to today’s horrors will have to address the complicated interactions of history, the participants themselves must step outside their attachment to the past and attack the problem from new perspectives.

Old Wine, New Bottles * Of and : the Early History of the South Slays * Under and the Ottomans: Conquest, Migrations, Conversion to * The 19th Century: Intellectuals Debate Nationality * Coming Together, Breaking Apart: Yugosiavism, Greater Serbdom, Croatian * The Siovenes and * The First Is Born, 1918 * Circus Democracy and a Police State: Yugoslavia During the * World War II: Yugoslavia Shattered, Genocide and Resistance * Tito Tries to Solve the National Question * Tito Steps In * The Succession: From Tito’s Death to Today. Books, Gitanes and CDs

By Nicholas Breyfogle chords and spraying rope dust. Throughout their tangled history, the south Slavic people Old Wine, New Bottles who came to make up what the twentieth century has known as We lived in peace for 50 years. We were neighbors, Yugoslavia have struggled with the forces of history. Their friends-Yugoslavians. I grew up never hearing eth memories reach back to an almost inconceivable degree, to nic hatred or plans for war. I loved summers in Sara and religious conversion a thousand years ago. They jevo, when everyone would walk along the main relive their history in the conflicts of today, in stories, political street in the evening, stopping at cafés filled with friends and happy laughter. My friends were normal speeches, and radio and television. Each new step is justified by teenagers. We wanted to have fun, go to movies and a past step, each claim by a past claim, and each victimization by parties and shop. We didn’t choose friends based on a past victimization. History has brought them together but it whether we were , or . has also torn them apart-sometimes with violence, sometimes Newsweek, March 8, 1993 with words. Today, the south Slays continue to struggle with their past- o wrote Naida Zecevic, an eighteen year old Bosnian, now a with religions, with ethnicity, with medieval empires, with the S first year student attending college in the USA and a de facto scars and changes made by the Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires, , exiled by the course of events from her family in Saraje with , with the impact of western notions of , vo. Her description fits well with past images of Yugoslavia as a with the violent breakup of those Empires, with the hungry tourist destination replete with startling mountains, lush coastal "Great Powers" resorts, who stood at their doors to gobble up the scraps, and a warm, inviting population who extended hospitali with different ty in old European conceptions of the unity of Yugoslavia, and with style. Yet, they are strange words to be read the approximately eighty years that they lived together under one ing these days. Hardly a day goes by without some’ further roof, often squabbling like the members of a family. It was a unfolding of the wars that rage between the people of family, but perhaps only one of convenience-never the best, Yugoslavia’s successor states. These wars now account for the only the better, solution. When the external threat of conquest most terrible fighting has seen since the end of the Sec disappeared and the economy disintegrated in the late 1980s, the ond World War-some 50,000 to 150,000 dead, anywhere family began to break up-each member now striving to take between two and three million displaced persons, institutional with them as many of the family possessions, and, in fact, as ized policies of rape, and the habitual assortment of torture, many of the other family members, as possible. slaughter, imprisonment, deprivation, and starvation. It is a war After centuries, the longstanding questions still remain to be without boundaries in which the line between civilian and sol answered. Who shall control the lands of Bosnia and Hercegov dier, in the true Balkan tradition of brigandage and guerilla war ma? Will it fare, is so blurred and besmirched that it all too often be the Croats or the Serbs who lead the south Slays? disappears. How are national The ethnic relations of the south Slays are like boundaries defined-by ethnicity or historic the mythical precedent, Gordian knot. For hundreds of years they have by religion or by language? Who are the south Slays, struggled to one group or many? untangle the intertwining chords, proposing different solutions Who are the ? Are they all Serbs at or all Croats? Will various times. Recently, however, the solution of choice it be a federal or central political structure? has Who will decide? become, not for the first time in their history, the forcible separa With all this history, tion of the knot by violently hacking the bonds that tie, splitting the south Slays are caught in a paradox. On one hand, lasting solutions to the struggle will inevitably ORIGINS MAY1993 have to come to terms with the causes-causes whose origins lie Slays. deeply entrenched in the past. On the other hand, today’s partici The final important result of the Ottoman conquest was the pants must escape that very same history-must break the bonds conversion of a significant part of the population to Islam. The that condemn them to relive the past-so that they may address greatest incidence of voluntary conversion took place in Bosnia the contemporary situation with clear and rational minds. and Hercegovina. Many Bosnians and Hercegovinians had come Of Christianity and Empire: The Early History of the South to adhere to the breakaway Bogomil Christian sect. They wel Slays comed the coming of the Muslims, only too happy to escape the persecution of their Christian brothers. To this day, Bosnian The Slavic peoples who now inhabit the majority of the Balkan Muslims are resented by the other south Slays as Turkish collab peninsula migrated to their new during the 6th and 7th orators and traitors. centuries and soon thereafter converted to Christianity. Those in Those who fell under Hapsburg control- the west-the Slays of modern day , -were con , Croats, Serbs-underwent a very different series of verted by speaking Roman Catholics, those in the east- changes and developments than their cousins under Ottoman ‘, , -by Eastern Orthodox dominion-changes that have left their mark to the present. The . With the schism that tore the Roman and Eastern Hapsburg Slays were exposed to German culture and the forces churches apart in 1054, the south Slays were permanently sepa of evolving capitalism. Administratively, the Hapsburg Slays rated one from the other. Bosnia and Hercegovina, situated on maintained traditional governing structures through the institu the dividing line between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern tion of the sabor-a governing assembly-and the -a gov Orthodox, were converted by both and were already a bone of ernor. Unlike the Ottoman Slav reliance on the church, the contention between the two sides. Croats and Slovenes relied on these political structures as During Medieval history, the south Slav lands developed al rallying points and for the upholding of tradition. two important empires-one centered on Croatia, the other on Serbia. Each empire expanded to control lands that today fall The NIneteenth Century: Intellectuals Debate Nationality under the jurisdiction of other nationalities. The Croatian king During the beginning of the nineteenth century, the concepts of dom, which included parts of what is today Bosnia, began in 924 nationality and nation that had developed from eighteenth centu and lasted for close to two hundred years. The peoples ry western European romanticism were taken up and applied by developed and maintained the strongest of the south Slav south Slavic intellectuals. Language, more than religion, cus medieval kingdoms, uniting the peoples of Montenegro, Herce tom, or even ethnicity was considered to be the all important govina, and Serbia. The kingdom reached its apex during the foundation of nationality. reign of Stepan Dusan 1331-1355 who expanded the borders to In Serbia, Vuk Karadzic standardized the include all of modem , Macedonia where Dusan located around the "stokavian" vernacular dialect. This act had a signifi his capital city, , parts of Bosnia, as well as a good por cant effect on Serbian-Croatian relations. The majority of the tion of . In 1389, the Serb army was defeated by the Croats also spoke in the stokavian dialect-a potentially unifying at Polje-a battle that has taken on a mystical importance for the Serbian people and which lies at the heart of the Serbian determination to hold Kosovo. Under Austria and the Ottomans 14th to 19th Centuries: Conquest-MigratIons--ConversIon to Islam

Today, pockets of ethnic Serbs are found spread throughout for LjutJijana ,_._‘ mer Yugoslav lands-in Croatia, in Bosnia aiid Hercegovina, in CROATIA Kosovo, in . This diaspora originated with the mass migrations westward that followed in K’jina the wake of the Ottoman Rgio Turkish Muslims invasions. The mass transfer continued in fits and starts over the course of the following centuries. It brought Croat and Serb together to live side by side and, over genera tions, they began to develop similar customs, traditions, and lan guage. Ottoman rule enhanced the power of the and religious leaders took on new roles. The Orthodox Church quickly became the vessel in which Serbian tradition and national consciousness was fostered and transported through the ages. Moreover, the Orthodox church acted to bind Ottoman Serbs with the other Serbs spread throughout the Hapsburg Empire. Ottoman rule served to distance its subjects from the devel opments in the West. The bureaucratic, administrative, feudal structure of Ottoman rule remained virtually unaltered by capi talism and the development of new classes. The consequence has POLITICAL MAP OF FORMER YUGOSLAVIA-Vojvodina and been a permanent economic lag on the part of the eastern south Kosovo were autonomous within Serbia, the other countries were full republics. [Electromap, Inc.]

MAY fl3 ORIGINS . 3 ______

force and basis for a . However, the linguistic issue on most of the specific proposals for unification. At the heart of also served to divide the Croats from the Serbs. Karadzic argued the disagreement lay two questions which have continued to the in an article "Serbs All and Everywhere" that all people who present day to plague south Slav leaders-Who would assume spoke stokavian were in fact Serbs-an interpretation that denied the mantle of leadership in the unification of the Yugoslavs? and, the existence of Croats who spoke in that dialect. The argument related, but equally as important, How would the lands that made quickly led to the interpretation that all lands in which the popu up the territories of Bosnia and Hercegovina be disposed of with lation spoke stokavian should belong to Serbia. Many Croats in any future Yugoslav nation? argued in a similar fashion, everyone was Croatian. Serbia became the first south Slav state to gain its autonomy These linguistic debates took place in the backdrop of a pan from the Ottomans or with the establishment of an Yugoslav ideology that developed in Croatia at the same time- independent monarchy in 1878. The road to freedom had begun Illyrianism, named for the Roman province of Illyria that as early as 1804 and followed a tortured path of peasant rebel covered the land on which the south Slav states later developed. lions and external meddling that left many dead and the final Adherents to the view asserted that all Balkan Slays were Serbian state frustrated by the interference of the Great Powers. descendents of the same tribe called the "" and were eth Within the Croatian political spectrum, three parties nically united. Distinctions between the Illyrian people existed emerged during the mid-I , each with a slightly different pol because of the years of foreign rule. The Illyrians could and icy on the issue of nationality. The Unionist party believed that should unite in the future. Croatia’s best interests lay in maintaining historic ties with Hun Coming Together, Breaking Apart gary and was anti-Serb, anti-Orthodox, and anti-Yugoslav. The Yugoslavlsm-Greater Serbdom-Croatlan Separatism National Party espoused the Illyrian idea, believing in the pan- Slavic vision but based around a Croatian nucleus. The Party of From the l850s, movement towards south Slav unity accelerated. [Croat State] Right led by Ante Starcevic stood for an indepen Nevertheless, "" always took back seat to the a dent Croatia. Starcevic argued that "the entire population stronger and more quickly developing sense of individual nation between Macedonia and [German-speaking Austrian areas], al identities. In 1866-67, secret meetings took place between the between the and the , has only one nationali representatives of the Croatian assembly and the Serbian foreign ty, one homeland, one Croatian being." ministry. A general agreement was reached for the "formation of Two events during the 1 870s served to rapidly distance the a Yugoslav state independent of Austria and ." However, south Slav groups from one another. First, an educational law almost immediately it became clear that disagreements existed was passed in 1874 in Croatia whose mission was to secularize education, shifting control from the churches to the sabor and, thereby, to foster a sense of "Croatness" among all Slavic peo ples in Croatia. The Orthodox Serbian population under the Monarchy resisted this legal action and demanded that they be exempted from the law. That the law was passed rankled Ser bian citizens. That the Orthodox called for an exemption, stifllu lated suspicions among nationalist Croat leaders. Second, the found themselves in crisis from 1875 78 which began with an uprising in the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina. At the international Congress of , the latter were placed under the occupation and adminis tration of the Hapsburg monarchy. Serbs in both Serbia and Austria objected as they considered the lands rightly Serbian. Croat response varied. Some censured the act, considering the lands Croat lands. Others embraced the freeing of south Slays from Ottoman control and saw in Austrian occupation the promise of a future amalgamation of Croatia with Bosnia and

Hercegovina under the Austrian Monarchy. - The antagonism that grew up during the I 870s, increased significantly as the twentieth century approached. In Serbia, extreme forms of national zeal were consciously fostered through the press, church and schools. on the extreme of Ser bian chauvinism was an article written by Stojanovic Ifl 1902 called "Serbs and Croats" in which he argued that the Croats "did not have their own language, nor common customs, nor a strong common identity, nor, what is impOItttlt, conscious ness of belonging to one another, as a result they cannot be a separate nationality." He continued by stressing that the conflict between Serbs and Croats would continue "until either we or you are eliminated. One side must surrender." Nineteenth century Muslim Bosnian warrior-they need his help now. At the same time, was fed not only bY [Metro Toronto Reference Library] ongoing confrontations with the Serbs but also by the rule of

4. ORIGINS . MAY1993 ______

Karoly Khuen-Hedervay, the Hungarian governor of Croatia. He adding "itch" to the ending. governed by the principle of divide and rule, pandering to the The First Yugoslavia Is Born, 1918 desires of the Serbian minority on matters religious, economic, and educational in return for their support in the sabor. The In 1914, the concept of Yugoslavism nowhere received any more Croatian Party of the Right, moved even farther to the extreme in than reserved support from the south Slav peoples. The final their chauvinism and under a new leader, Josip Frank, turned to creation of Yugoslavia came almost as an accident and was fraught violence as well as harsh rhetoric. In 1896, Hapsburg Serbs were from the outset with internal weaknesses and contradic confronted by Croat nationalists with demonstrations and tions. burnings and in 1902, following the publication of "Serbs and Wartime meetings between representatives of the Hapsburg Croats," Croats took to the streets beating and harassing Serbs Slays and the exiled Serbian government culminated in the Dec and destroying their property. laration of in July of 1917 which agreed in principle to the In 1905, five Serbian and Croatian parties within the Haps union of all south Slays. Despite the enumeration of specific burg Monarchy came together to form the Croatian-Serbian characteristics for the new state-constitutional, democratic Coalition. The party believed in the existence of one nationali monarchy, freedom of religion, use of both alphabets Cyrillic ty-Yugoslav-with three names-Serb, Croat, and Slovene. and -the issue of a federal or central state structure was Just as the Catholic and Protestant could make up parts not resolved and remains unsolved to this day. of the same so too could Catholic and Orthodox south Two threatening forces-one internal, one external-acted Slays. The party won at least a plurality in each of the succeed as the catalysts for the eventual creation of the first "Yugoslav" state in 1918 called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes ing pre-war free elections, indicating support for their ruled "Yugoslav" ideas. However, even this party did not completely by the Serbian King Aleksandar. On the one hand, the collapsing Hapsburg lands were caught in of agree as to the future of a Yugoslav state. Whereas a vocal por a spiral spontaneous tion conceived of a unitary state consisting only of Hapsburg peasant unrest that resulted from a combination of wartime Slays another section argued that any south Slavic state must deprivations and longstanding hardship. On the other hand, Ital comprise the Serbs of . Moreover, while ian troops were advancing into south Slavic lands. The agreement could be reached concerning opposition to the Austro had been promised parts of Croatia and Slovenia by the Allies at Hungarian government, the issue of Bosnia and Hercegovina the secret London treaty of 1915 in return for entering the war on the side. the they remained a profound obstacle. Each group laid vocal claims to Allied When war ended came to collect pay their historic and ethnic right to the lands, realizing that whoever ment. controlled those lands would in essence have the upper hand in Circus Democracy and a Police State: Yugoslavia During

arbitration over south Slav leadership. - the Interwar Period Following the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdi From the outset, internal problems threatened to break the new nand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, in 1914, Croatian ultra-nation state apart. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was alists, taking their cues from , organized and carried out a campaign of persecution against the Serbian population, espe cially in Bosnia-Hercegovina where turned into a "fren zy of hate." Simultaneously they harangued the leaders of the Croatian-Serbian coalition in the Croatian Assembly calling them "murderers of the Croatian heir to the throne." They sought and took advantage of any opportunity to open a chasm between Serbs and Croats. Nineteenth Century Nationalism: The Slovenes and Macedonlans The Slovenians gave little serious consideration to the Yugoslav idea until the 1880s and 1890s. Slovene national consciousness was slow to make its way out from underneath the domination of German influences. As such the Slovenes were more interested in the development of their own identity than they were in a south Slav identity. They frequently spurned Serbian advances because they regarded them as both politically and economically backward. Nationalist sentiments were also growing, although at a * * Orthodox, * :* * * Serbia,, and Macedoniant much slower pace among the Macedonian population. In 1896 Catholic the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization IMRO Muslims, Slavic was born which struggled to throw off foreign rule. In the Mace donian that came under Serbian control in 1913 an area Muslims, Albanian that had formed part of Dusan’s Medieval empire, the new Serb masters began a policy of cultural and linguistic assimilation. ETHNIC/RELiGIOUS BREAKDOWN OF FORMER YUGOSLAVIA-Areas shaded represent regions in which that religion Macedonians were compelled through threats of imprisonment, and/or ethnicityformed the majority. Macedonia and Serbia have torture, and death to change their names to Serbian style by separate branches of the Orthodox church [Electromap, Inc.]

MAY 1g3 . ORIGINS . 5 very much more than that. It was a mosaic that included five refused to compromise. They took their complaints to the inter Slavic peoples and a variety of minority non-Slays, three reli national community trying to find a backer for their vision of an gions, eight historical provinces, three main languages as well as independent Croatia. These actions smacked of betrayal for the a host of dialects, two alphabets and a plethora of both bad and Serb populations who were dismayed that the Croats wanted out good feeling that was the legacy of relations during the pre-war so soon. years. Moreover, the component peoples found themselves at The south Slavic experience with democracy in the l920s very different economic and social conditions. The old Austro was one of exasperation and frustration in which little was Hungarian lands Croatia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina were more achieved. The nationwide elections of 1920 returned candidates industrialized. Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Hercegovina from a whole spectrum of regionally based parties. The divided ‘accounted for no more than 15% of the nation’s industry. parliamentarians vetoed, obstructed and blocked any legislation Serbs viewed the new state as a continuation of the pre-1914 that came through, struggling to tailor it to the needs of their spe Serbian Kingdom, with its constitution, army, monarchy, and cific locality. To cap things off, Radic and four other members bureaucracy. They promoted Serb-dominated centralization and of were shot by a disaffected Montenegrin politician. the slogans, "three names-one people" and "the three tribes of King Aleksandar took this opportunity to terminate the unwork the Yugoslav nation." However, overt forces of division came able parliament and institute a royal dictatorship. In October, from Croat separatist movements, the Party of Right and the 1929 the name of the nation was officially changed to Croat Peasant Party led by Stepan Radic. By 1930, the Party of Yugoslavia. Aleksandar decreed a constitution, proclaiming a the Right led by Ante Pavelic had turned into a ultra-nationalist centralized state. In an effort to foster a national unity, citizens paramilitary terrorist organization the ustasa, finding support in were henceforth to consider themselves "Yugoslav," all signs Mussolini who wished to see an independent Croatia that he and symbols of the old nationalities were removed and all mea could pull into his sphere of influence. Radic and the Croat sures were backed with force. Peasant Party called for a loose confederation of republics and The assassination of Aleksandar in in 1 934-appar ently coordinated by the ustasa and IMRO-once again re mapped the national landscape. By 1939, Yugoslavia was effectively divided into two spheres of influence, one Croatian, the other Serbian. Croatia was made into an enlarged province with special autonomous powers, a separate legislature, and con trol of fiscal and administrative matters. This looked very much like the loose confederal solution that Radic had searched for during the 1920s. The final boundaries between the two spheres, however, were never specifically defined-the issue of the mixed populations of Bosnia and Hercegovina remained unan swerable. This new agreement also entirely dismissed the equal ity of the other nationalities within Yugoslavia, a fact that they very much resented. World War II: Yugoslavia Shattered, Genocide and Resis tance Of all the incidents in the past relations of the south Slays, World War II and the treatment of the Serbs by the Croat ustasa gov ernment is most often rehashed and is by far the most incendiary. Following the Axis victory, Yugoslavia was cut up into tiny pieces and divided amongst the victors-Germany, , Hun gary, and Albania. In Croatia, a fascist government, led by Pavelic, was erected on the foundation of the ustasa. It was the realization of the long desired independent Croat state and included all of Bosnia and Hercegovina with its population of approximately 50% Serbs and 30% Muslims. The Croat ustasa government organized systematic mas sacres of the Serbs on Croatian territory. The extent and degree of the horror is bitterly debated today between Serbs and Croats. Certain historians have claimed that the destruction of the Serbs ranks second only to the Jewish Holocaust in both ferocity and volume. Others argue that it was the Germans, not the Croats, who carried out the massacres. Some put the number of Serbian victims at 200,000, others at 600,000, still others at more. In one documented case, 1,260 Serbian peasants were locked in an Orthodox church, murdered and incinerated. Moreover, the King Aleksandar-first king of Yugoslavia, 1918-1934. instituted a policy of forcible conversion of [Metro Toronto Reference Library] Orthodox Serbs that turned some 200,000 Serbs into Catholics.

6 ORIGINS . MAY1993 As World War II came to a close, civil war and anarchy on a new and accelerated speed. Economic reforms were under broke out in Yugoslavia. The two primary resistance forces- taken that, for all intents and purposes, ended central decision Mihailovic’s and Tito’s Partisans-fought both the con making and placed control of investment funds and the banking quering Germans, the Croat ustasa, and each other the Chetniks system into the hands of local ethnic authorities. These bodies tended to be royalists, the Partisans, communists and the Chet quickly came to function only within a specific region or locality niks often collaborated with the German forces against the Parti in small, inefficient units. sans. Local populations armed themselves against the invaders, At this time, moreover, the autonomous provinces of Koso against the different paramilitary organizations and against their vo and Vojvodina, technically within the jurisdiction of Serbia, neighbors. The civil war involved everyone and it left deep gained official autonomy. In Kosovo, nationalist demonstrations scars. by the majority Albanian population resulted in the flight of Tito Tries to Solve the National Question large parts of the ethnic Serbs who, filled with resentment, feared for their future. The Serbs considered Kosovo to be the heart The development of Tito’s response to the national question can land of the old Medieval Serbian state and claimed it on histori The first , be seen in four relatively distinct stages. stage until cal grounds. The rightly pointed to their demographic 1948, reflected a Soviet, Stalinist solution to a multi-ethnic soci dominance-approximately 80% of the population-and their ety. Five distinct Yugoslav , six republics, and two historic roots on the land which date back to well into the eigh autonomous regions were recog teenth century. nized. Administrative structures At the same time Croatian were created to support and bol leaders were becoming even complexity ster ethnic but coun more assertive in their demands terbalanced by a highly for greater autonomy and overt centralized, single-party dicta signs of sovereignty. The 1967 torship with a strong police Croatian "Language Declara centrally presence and managed tion" called for the recognition economy. of Croatian as an equal, official Following the break with Yugoslavian language-to be Union the Soviet in 1948, the taught in schools and used in central government took its first the media-and rejected Serbo steps towards the decentraliza Croatian as an artificial, Serb tion of both the economy and inflicted "political language." the political structure to lower This period also witnessed levels and workers cooperatives the recognition of two "new" thereby beginning the second nations-the Bosnian Muslim Yugoslavia, stage. In ‘local’ 1968-69 and the Macedonian means ‘ethnic’ and the decision 1967. For the first time in to divest the center of its hundreds of years Bosnia and monopoly served to inflame Hercegovina as well as Mace regional animosities and donia were officially consid enhance inter-regional competi ered ethnically based nations, tion as they grappled for scarce rather than simply distinct cul resources. tural communities. That regional allegiances were once again on the rise was Tito Steps In shown by resistance to a The administration of the coun "Yugoslavism" campaign try was collapsing and dead designed to foster an overarching supranational sentiment that locked in the maze of mutual vetoes built into the constitution. would override the centripetal regional-nationalist forces. The In this atmosphere of growing internal ethnic tension, Tito industrially more advanced Croatia and Slovenia, believing that stepped in 1971, threatening military intervention, to bring the they had received the short end of the stick, lobbied for greater crisis under control. liberalization while at the same time complained that many of Tito’ s drastic measures of 1971-72 inaugurated the fourth the state departments and especially that of security, were domi phase of the national solution. The federal system remained in nated by ethnic Serbs. They saw the policy of "Yugoslavism" as place and was even bolstered by the 1974 constitution that left a veiled attempt on the part of the Serbian center to re-instate the only questions of foreign policy, defense, and general economic type of Yugoslavia that had existed under King Aleksandar direction to the . The greatest difference between twenty-five years before. In the face of this negative reaction the the third and fourth phases was Tito who asserted his great per "Yugoslavism" program was scrapped and the liberalizers finally sonal power to keep a lid on the boiling pot. The new leaders swayed Tito to their side. The centralizers were purged in 1966 had learned that Tito would no longer tolerate the overt expres and Yugoslavia moved on to the third stage of the Titoist nation sion of regional interests. Moreover, these same leaders had al solution. come to realize that localist sentiment could, if out of hand, act From 1965, the move towards local "self-management" took to disrupt other, perhaps more important, components to their

MAY 1943 . ORIGINS . 7 lives, such as the economy. During the 1970s the economy was Milosevic capitalized on Serb grievances under the federal on therise and few people wished to disturb the success. system. Serbs complained about their lack of influence in feder Despite the relative quiet of the l970s-a significant rise in al Yugoslavia where the significance of their larger population the number of citizens who described themselves as "Yugoslav," was lost in a system that gave equal weight to each ethnicity, and rather than as a member of a specific , appeared to specifically of what they perceived to be their raw treatment in bode well for Yugoslavia’s future-the regional-nationalist the economic sphere; about the division of Serbia into three parts waters continued to boil, shown by further demonstrations and Kosovo and Vojvodina by the Croat Tito and his second in arrests in Kosovo in the mid-l970s. With the death of Tito in command Kardelj, a Slovene; and about the nationalism and irre 1980, the safety catches on the lid disappeared. dentism of the separatist Albanians in Kosovo, which they The Succession:’ From Tito’s Death to Today believed was being fostered by the other republics. The multi-party elections of 1990 brought non-Communist, The two most important factors that kept Yugoslavia from break regionally centered governments into power in Slovenia, Croatia, ing apart before 1980 had disappeared by the second half of the Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Macedonia. Just days before the l980s-Tito was dead and the economy disintegrated. Foreign fighting began, they continued to rehash the longstanding issues pressure, traditionally the other important force keeping of federal versus central and the splitting of Yugoslavia into its Yugoslavia together was incoherent and internally disorga Ottoman and Hapsburg components. But where would the bor nized-the was over and the European Community, in ders be and how would Bosnia and Hercegovina be dealt with? dispute. Fragmentation ran amok as two hundred regionally based parties In this environment, regional political leaders-who emerged. All attempts at reform by the Prime Minister Ante espoused chauvinist, ethnic, populist messages-combined with Markovic were blocked or undermined by different ethnic par the people to work each other into a frenzy. Slobodan Milosevic, ties, reminiscent of the political stalemate of the early interwar who became Communist Party Chief of Serbia in 1986, remains years. This time there was no Tito or Aleksandar to restore sta the most prominent of these nationalist leaders but was certainly bility. not the only one. By fostering street democracy and mass rallies, Regional nationalism grew like wildfire. Fear of separatist Milosevic started in motion a perpetual backlash between the movements soared among Serbs living outside of Serbia and republics, most especially between Sloyenia and Serbia. relations between the republics soured. The memories of past

[Kirk Anderson]

8* ORIGINS . MAY1993 conflicts were blown out of proportion for political end. Serbs boring nations into the Yugoslav maelstrom. pointed to the horrors of the independent Croatian state during George Santayana warned that those who do not remember World War II and, in a highly publicized incident, Croat leaders their past are destined to repeat it. But the south Slays remember renamed a square in Zagreb after Ante Starcevic, the 19th centu their history all too well and nevertheless seem condemned to ry Croatian ultra-nationalist who unfavorably compared Serbs relive it. While the forces of history have led to the breakup of with barnyard animals. Yugoslavia and serve as the wellspring of the violence, if the Fear of an independent Croatian government was especially south Slays are to come to a resolution of the problem outside of fierce in the Krajina region where the Serbs represented the mutual annihilation, they must forget their past and concentrate majority of the population. Milosevic came to the support of the only on salvaging the present-a formidable task in Yugoslavia. "foreign" Serbs demanding rights and protection for their com As always, however, it should be remembered that this is a munities. He did not oppose self-determination on the part of the war fought by people, not the forces of history. The reasons for other republics but asked that the same courtesy be extended to fighting are not always as clear as history might make them the majority Serb populations within their boundaries. He quiet appear. In a report published in Harper’s Magazine of March, ly encouraged the "foreign" Serbs to demand it-this despite his 1993, "Balkan Death Trip-Scenes From a Futile War," Tony blatant denial of self-determination of the Albanian population in Horwitz relays the personal motivations of a Serb named Zjelko Kosovo. fighting for hometown Sarajevo. It is a painful reminder that In the Krajina, local Serbs, not always following ’s war is often about nothing at all, that people continue to fight lead, took matters and the initiative into their own hands. They because they want simply for the fighting to end. armed themselves, blocked roads, and took over local facilities. I don’t fight for nationalism-I sleep with girls of all As pessimism grew, Slovenia and Croatia prepared for a gun nations. I don’t fight for religion-God is no place. fight. The Yugoslav People’s Army JNA believed in the I fight because I want to go back down there [the importance of maintaining Yugoslavia intact without which they downtown house he left months earlier in fear of would have no job and often came to side with the Serbian gov attacks on Serbs] with my books and my CD player ernment and local Serb militias. In June of 1991, following the and my Gitane cigarettes. Serb sponsored blocking of the rotation of the presidency, Slove nia and Croatia declared independence. Sabers rattled, leaders misjudged, and both the people and their states accelerated arm ing. The violent conflict had begun. Books, Gitanes, and CDs Over the past two years, the fighting has moved from Slovenia to Croatia to Bosnia and Hercegovina. While Slovenia is now rela tively quiet, battles continue to rage in Croatia between the Kra jina Serbs and the new Croat government. In Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbs and Croats-as they have for hundreds of years-are fighting the Slavic Muslims to carve out control of a region that they both claim. Overt violence has yet to sweep Vojvodina, Kosovo or Macedonia. However, these three regions may prove to be the most tragic. Each area includes a large non- Slavic population Hungarian, Albanian, and Bulgarian and Turkish respectively and conflict could conceivably drag neigh-

Slovenian peasant in more peaceful times. [Josephine King]

MAY 13 . ORIGINS . 9